NP? the Situation

[Doug Millison]

Homegrown Christian fundamentalists & anthrax terrorism:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/10/17/anthrax_letters/index_np.html

The nation's last anthrax scare
No one paid much attention when abortion providers received letters
supposedly tainted with anthrax in 1998 and 1999. Everyone's paying
attention now.

By Frederick Clarkson

Oct. 17, 2001  The arrival of letters that claimed to contain anthrax at
more than 100 family planning and abortion clinics Monday triggered a new
wave of national panic about bioterrorism.

But the sweep of terror by mail brought an entirely different response from
the Rev. Donald Spitz, spokesman for the violently antiabortion Army of
God. Spitz cheerfully announced that the flood of potentially
life-threatening mail "made my day," but he denied having any knowledge of
where the letters came from.

It's not the first time abortion providers have dealt with an anthrax
scare. According to the National Abortion Federation, there have been at
least 80 anthrax threats against providers since 1998, with an epidemic of
almost two dozen publicized threats in 1998 and 1999.

This time, a chapter of the Army of God -- the underground antiabortion
group in whose name a 20-year crime spree of arson, assassination and
bombing has been carried out against abortion providers -- claimed
responsibility. "You have been exposed to anthrax," each letter announced.
"We are going to kill all of you. From the Army of God, Virginia Dare
Chapter."

Virginia Dare is believed to be the first white child born in the New
World, in 1587, days after the first colonists arrived on Roanoke Island.
Her grandfather was John White, the governor of Virginia.  [...]

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What did GR have to say about the gradient of destruction from the V-2
attacks on London? 400 of the "poorest of the poor" civilians killed in
Afghanistan so far, according to this report:

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11734

Kabul's Poorest Have No Escape from U.S. Bombs
Islam Online
October 16, 2001

Only the poorest of the poor in the desperately impoverished Afghan capital
remain in the city as constant U.S. air raids spread fear and panic among a
normally stoic people.

"Believe me, whenever there's a raid my children start crying. Last night,
even I cried with them," Mohammad Nabi, 41, an auto spare parts salesman in
the Qwaee Markaz area of Kabul, was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as
saying.  [...]

The Pentagon confirmed Saturday that a 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bomb
struck a residential area near Kabul, claiming a wrong digit was entered as
the target's coordinates, killing at least four civilians, injuring dozens
others and razing at least six houses to the ground, forcing their
inhabitants to join the scores of already homeless people in a city where
hundreds of thousands already rely on foreign aid just to eat. Thus far,
U.S. bombs have killed a reported 400 civilians.

One such report confirmed that at least 160 people, mainly women and
children, were killed in a village earlier this week when a U.S. missile
fell on a neighborhood destroying everything in sight, including a thousand
head of livestock in the farming community. [...]

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http://www.la.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=11703

While the mainstream media is busy patting itself on the back for its
coverage of the events following September 11, a group of communication
scholars from around the world has criticized that coverage and issued a
petition calling for "more responsible journalism."  [...] "We wanted to
draw on our expertise as people who systematically think about media
performance," said Robert Huesca, associate professor of communication at
Trinity University in Texas, one of the petition's organizers. "The idea
was to call on journalists to draw on the strengths of U.S. journalism's
traditions and to rise to the occasion of using them in this environment of
crisis."

Among the signers are professors from throughout Southern California who
believe the news coverage features too narrow a range of viewpoints and
includes too little context for the average American to have an informed
opinion. [...]

"The coverage on network news and in newsmagazines has seemed to me to have
adopted the goal to prepare us for war, rather than to explore questions
such as 'How did we get to this point?' or 'Whose war would this be?' "
said Aaron Castelan Cargile, Director of Graduate Studies at California
State University, Long Beach. "I've been gravely disappointed by the
largely uncritical lens Americans have been given to view this 'war.' "

Indeed airing any criticism at all is "framed as unpatriotic," said Kristin
Moran, assistant professor of communication studies at the University of
San Diego. "Any alternative discourses have been marginalized," she said.
[...]

The petition calls on the mainstream media to take the following steps:

* Expand and balance the range of information sources beyond current and
former U.S. military and government officials to include domestic and
international academics, think tank analysts, and civic leaders.

* Seek diverse and contrasting perspectives, including ethnic and gender
diversity, that will broaden and deepen discussions regarding potential
courses of action in response to this tragedy.

* Incorporate historical, cultural, and religious dimensions into
interviews and reports whenever possible, rather than treating them as
discrete topics isolated from routine reporting.

* Expose audiences to the research, practices, and guidance of the large
body of scholars and practitioners of peace studies.

* Select language and images that most dispassionately and accurately
describe events and conditions; avoid routinely adopting the terms and
interpretations of officials into breaking and continuing news portrayals.

* Limit the repetition of extreme images of destruction, violence, pain,
and suffering, and balance them with routine examples of cooperation,
reconstruction, and reconciliation.

* Reassign employees to non-editorial responsibilities if they have
conflicts of interest with current policy discussions. This would include
former employment in key government agencies and family relationships to
high-ranking government officials.  [...]

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